BEADING How To

Beady Tips and Tricks

This section is for all kinds of methods and techniques you can employ with beads, crystals, stones, and gemstones in your projects. Beads can be used in jewelry making, clothing decoration, shoe embellishment, on bags, and in just about any imaginable field of endeavour.

Bead Embroidery on Fabric

Bead Embroidery

Beading on Fabric

You can use any fabric that you can get a needle through. Bead embroidery has been around for generations and is highly valued in the haute couture fashion world. Amongst the most renown wedding dress featuring beading on fabric is of course Princess Diana's wedding dress. Beads on fabrics look great not only on dresses, gowns and in fashion but also add that 'something extra' on bags, hats, shoes, belts, and even paper.

In the illustration below on Beading on Fabric, we show a fabric (that has designs on it) that can be further enhanced with bugle and seed beads. Combining beads with sequins really makes a fabric stand out. Small pearl beads adds tremendous value and distinction.

Tools Needed:

short beading needle
beading thread
bugle & seed beads

Steps: Bead Embroidery on Fabric

1) Thread the beading needle with about 1 meter of beading thread. Tie a knot at the other end of the thread. Thread the needle through the fabric, back to front, where you want to position the first bead.
2) Thread your first bead. Push the needle back through the fabric, front to back, slightly further along from where the thread came up and towards where you want the second bead. This spacing (between the in and out of the needle on the fabric) should be far enough to allow the bead to sit nicely on the fabric.
3) Continue to embellish the fabric in this way till your are happy with the look.

you can add several beads at a time if you like
to create areas of beadwork, you need to finish the thread off in one area and start a new threading at the next beadwork area.
you can also use the same techniques for Bead Embroidery on Paper.

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Bead Embroidery on Paper

Bead Embroidery

Beading on Paper

Bead Embroidery on paper is a very interesting and rewarding craft, made more so by the diverse wealth of beautiful paper being produced. Just like beading on fabric, it is also possible to bead on paper - for card making, in scrapbooking, making books and album covers, wedding invitations, etc.

Paper that has pre-made holes in them are ideal for bead embroidery. These are paper that have 'machine embroidery' design. These papers already have holes in them and so makes it much easier to embellish the paper with beads and threads.

Tools Needed:

beading needle
beading or cotton sewing thread that tones well with the paper you are going to use
bugle & seed beads
machine-embroidered paper (i.e. has holes already)

1) Thread the beading needle with about 1 meter of beading thread. Tie a knot at the other end of the thread.

2) Leave about 2 cm (½ inch) clear paper selvage edging (or enough paper to turn and cover edges of book or album).
2cm or more in from the paper edge, thread the needle through the paper, back to front - using one of the machined holes (if available).

3) Look carefully at the space between where your needle emerges and the next (machine) hole you want to put the needle back through. Estimate how many beads you can comfortably fit in that space between those 2 holes. Thread those number of beads and put the needle, front to back, into the next (machine) hole.

4) Bring the needle back up to the front in the next hole. Do as step above.
You will now note that there is a gap between one line of beads and the next. If desired, you can fill this gap on the return journey, as in the next (optional) step.

5) (Optional) Continue as you have above till you get to the end of one row or aspect of the pattern. Remember not to work right to the edge of the paper but to leave a clear 2cm selvage.

Turn your paper 180° and add beads in the same way as step above, to fill any gaps that have been left in the first round.

7) Continue with your bead embroidery on paper till you are satisfied with the final beaded look.

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Beading Stitches

BEADING STITCHES

Photos, How-Tos, tips, techniques on Beading Stitches

This will be a collection of some of the many beading stitches. There are many and varied and they can help you produce even more remarkable new creations by utilizing these skills.

Many of these techniques make use of seed beads and rocailles though once you have gotten the skill under your belt, you can use the same techniques with any bead of your fancy.

Samplers

Beading Stitches - Samplers

Pictorial Sampler of Various Beading Stitches

The purpose of this Beading Stitches Sampler Library is so that you can see what some of these stitches look like as well as how they could look different with different kinds of beads. I will be using a variety of beads, including varying qualities. The results should be both instructive and interesting. I may also employ contrasting thread color so that there is a chance of seeing the threading in the samplers.

11 Oct 09: This will be a growing of collection of pictorial samplers of various beading stitches. Please come back again for another visit as this Beading Stitches Library grows.

Herringbone/Ndebele Stitch

This sampler is done up with bugle beads. Here you can see the Herringbone pattern quite clearly. The Herringbone stitch is also commonly known as the Ndebele Stitch.

This next Herringbone Stitch sampler is done using random colours and even slightly random sized round seed beads. Here the herringbone pattern is not as obvious.

Tubular Herringbone Stitch

Sample of bead caps done in Tubular Herringbone stitch. Beads are silver plated 2mm round metal beads and bugle beads.

The foundation row is in Ladder Stitch. And I ended the sampler using the Ladder Stitch as well.
Herringbone Stitch is quite a fun stitch to do.

Peyote Stitch

Peyote stitch is one of the most popular stitches around. This sampler is done with mixed color seed beads of irregular sizes. You can see the up-down / zigzag pattern that is at the core of this stitch.

Another sampler with the same kinds of seed beads.

Peyote Stitch with Mid-way Increase

This next Peyote stitch sampler shows where there has been a mid-way increase causing the work to span outwards. The black beads are where the increase has taken place.

Square Stitch

This is a quick sampler. I have deliberately used a slightly contrasting thread colour so I could see the threads after the sampler was done. Square Stitch over 15 stitches using China metallic gold and frosted black seed beads (available from ClearlyChosen stores)

This next Square Stitch sampler is done with multi-colors and uneven sized seed beads. As you can see, even with uneven sizes, one can produce quite attractive pieces.

At the time of writing, packs of these mixed coloured seed beads can be purchased from ClearlyChosen jewelry supplies store.

The square stitch is very easy and fun to do. Great for incorporating patterns and colours as all the beads are lined up vertically and horizontally. That makes graphing the pattern much easier.

Note however that you would want to have beads with slightly larger holes and/or finer needles ad the thread has to pass through each bead a few times.